Season 5, Episode 4: Meaning, Values, Nature, and Family
image credit | Shelby Bowman
Season 5, Episode 4: Meaning, Values, Nature, and Family
Your environmental identity is a core source of strength and long-term coping with eco and climate stresses. This was the theme of this episode as Panu spoke with Thomas about Part II – Identity – of Thomas's new book Surviving Climate Anxiety. As Thomas explained, each chapter, “Meaning,” “Values,” “Nature” and “Family” highlights a core aspect of environmental identity and how it's made and maintained. Panu and Thomas also discussed the recent New York City Climate Week activities as an example of positive changes and opportunities to engage with gifted leaders and innovators. Join us for an inspiring discussion!
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Transcript
Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.
[music: “CC&H theme music”]
Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.
Thomas Doherty: Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty.
Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.
Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling and dreaming deeply about climate change and other environmental issues. And we ask this provocative question, what does it mean to be happy in the modern world? And that usually animates our discussions. Panu, how are you doing today?
Pihkala: Thanks for asking, Thomas. It's early evening in Helsinki as it is usually when we record and this is going to be the second in line on episodes where we heavily discuss Tomas's new book which is soon gonna come out of the printing houses. Surviving Climate Anxiety, A Guide to Coping, Healing and Thriving.
And this episode we are looking especially at part two, which has the general heading of identity, but it has four chapters on meaning, values, nature and family. All topics that we love to discuss in this podcast. And also, I know, Thomas, as we record this, you're soon about to end your trip to the New York Climate Week. So I wanted to get us started by asking how has that experience been?
Doherty: Yeah, thanks Panu. Yeah, I'm coming in from a non-traditional location here in New York City, and currently in Manhattan. yeah, it's been a really nice week and I've had a chance to visit some. Travel is a big deal these days and so you want to make the most of your travel opportunities. So I've been able to visit with family here and be a tourist in New York and get my daughter Ava off on her own travels. She's turned 18 and she's doing some world travel. So that's a big developmental stage for us and our family. And then meeting with my publisher.
And then, yes, attending, and it all happened in the context of this climate week, which is just a general open series of meetings and events across New York related to climate change, and also held in tandem with the current UN General Assembly. So there's a lot of events, actually way more than you could possibly attend, but I was able to see some really great events about education and talk to public school teachers and Sarah who we know from the Climate and Mental Health Network. We've also interviewed Anya Kamenetz. So I've got to meet a couple of the people that we've interviewed and saw a really good talk on food production and chefs and people being creative about making food taste good and also be sustainable. And then there was talks about policy and economics and the arts. I also did a really nice nature-based therapy group with a therapist named Maya in Brooklyn, New York who did a movement-based therapy group. Another artist named Hila the Earth who's a really fun performance artist. So I really got a chance to do a lot of things and at another point we can talk about the arts but I got to see the Waiting for Godot play, the current production of Waiting for Godot on Broadway which is something we can bookmark for another conversation about the arts. But yes, a full week and I should say that was all the messages around climate and action I heard were positive.
Pihkala: Yeah, quite a counterbalance to some of the content in the global news, but great to hear about how rich the experience has been there. Whenever I went to social media during the week, I've seen photos of my American colleagues at New York climate week. So lots of people working with these issues there, as you say.
Some of the things you mentioned have quite explicit links to the chapters and themes in the parts two of your book. For example, different identities and values. Sometimes they might have something to do with food and preparing food and for some other people some different things. And of course identity as a broad steam has been very much present in this podcast and in this form.
These chapters, are partly doing a sort of general audience presentation of some of the classic research in environmental psychology, but I would say in a quite user-friendly way. So there is more information and concepts, it's not very technical. It's not an academic course book, but it's linking the important research to the teams that you are discussing.
If you're thinking of part two and of course your experiences in New York during the week, what are some of the themes that most powerfully come to your mind?
Doherty: Yeah, well one of the messages I wanted to get out in the book and potentially the biggest message is this idea of environmental identity, which we talk about on the podcast a lot. It's still an unfamiliar term for a lot of people and it's just basically really tapping into our sense of our identity and our sense of self and personhood in relation to nature and the natural environment, not just our possessions and our physical environment.
Everyone has one, an environmental identity of different kinds, and often it's sort of just under the surface and when you get people talking about it, it leads to these conversations. That's sort of how that section of the book got designed because, the overall section is called identity, but the meaning is really like how we make sense of the world and how we see ourselves, you know, this eco timeline, you know, from our birth to the present, on the episodes in the podcast here, when we talk about people's background and how they got to their work, that's what they talk about is where they grew up, their sense of place, their family, connections with nature.
And so, the whole book was a strategic question of how to sequence all of these ideas for the reader so they can kind of follow along and have this building sense of themselves. that part two is really important because a lot of people want to rush to the eco-anxiety and the eco-despair and the most difficult issues, but if you don't have a sense of your identity and your values and your own sense of place and your family background and all that's the solid foundation, it's really hard to know what to do with all of that angst and anxiety. the identity just a super foundational piece. With anything, if you want to learn how to play a musical instrument, you have to start somewhere with some basics.
So the identity piece helps us to sort of start where we are. And then maybe later we can talk about action because there's a lot of political denialism about climate change happening in the US and so it there's this pull to really push against that and I think that environmental identity is the way to push against it to say I have this values I have these beliefs I this is my lived experience and you can't deny that and take that away from me
Pihkala: Thanks for discussing all that and identity and values and relationships, attachments, emotional bonds, lot of things related to quite deep stuff in us and related to dynamics of what do we do and why do we do it.
The concept of values is often used here. It's and evidently important. And then I often find myself wondering about how to give words to those kinds of factors which are not explicitly values but still guide what we do. Well, habits would be one thing, but I'm thinking about the climate deniers, for example. So I guess not many of them would say that they have sort of misanthropic values, and because they don't care about what happens to other folks, they don't care about climate matters, but there's something driving their behavior. I'm not sure if you have an idea what I'm pointing at here, but perhaps this is a very general question about what kind of factors drive our behavior.
Doherty: Yeah, I mean it's all linked together. I mean that's a challenge in the book is that everyone, everybody wants to do everything all at once. And you have to say, okay, take a breath and let's just be systematic and take some steps. So the first section of the book is about just basic coping, like how to think more effectively about how big climate change is and how complicated it is and that you see one part of it.
And then, you know, how to have a growth mindset, you know, where you realize you can learn and change and we collectively as humans can learn and grow and then all the emotion work that you do. And then I talk about in terms of emotions wheel and emotional intelligence. And then stress reduction and taking care of our bodies and doing our adaptation work that we need to do wherever we live. That’s all that basic stuff and then there's this identity piece.
One of the important values and feelings is being patient, you know, like at one step at a time. And I get this question a lot. Almost every talk someone will say, well, what do I do about this person who doesn't care about climate change or a relative or someone? And they always go to this recalcitrant person. And it's really interesting just to stop and step back and say, why do we even care about these people? Why is it so important for us to speak to these people? And I think underneath it, you know, we're social. We're social beings. We're mammals. We are primates. We have evolved to live in social groups very closely together. And in-group, out-group dynamics are really important to us. And if someone in our tribe doesn't agree with us and we feel conflict, it's really troubling for people. they're pulled to want to debate and want to find common ground, particularly if you do have values about unity and justice, so it's a paradox. But what I was talking about yesterday in a similar discussion is that just, well first of all, make sure that you're talking to the people that agree with you, right? Spend your energy with the people that agree with you and that you feel safe and comfortable with first. That builds your foundation, you know, because that's where the energy, that's where the positive action's going to come from.
With climate propaganda and some of the just gross denialism that's coming out of Washington right now is that it's not meant to spark a positive discussion or even a true discussion. It's not even based in the truth. so sometimes it's a waste of our time to involve ourselves with people who are actively denying, because they want to waste our time. They want to pull us out of the game and monopolize our attention and make us feel bad and make us feel doubtful. it's a strategic thing, but really make sure that what I tell everyone is make sure you're first spending time with people that care about you and care about what you believe. So you can work together and be aligned and have a team and have some unity and power. And then just as needed, selectively, you can work with people that are recalcitrant if you need to. But sometimes you don't need to. You need to bypass them and work with the people who want to make change. But it's easier said than done because I think at a primal level, we're drawn to want to connect with these other people. But it is ultimately, you know, later in the book I talk about action and so this all does come down to very important questions about strategy. But that's a different, you know, that's a later conversation, that's a more advanced conversation than identity. But again, when people are new they jumble all this stuff up. So part of the process is disentangling this and saying, first take care of yourself, then clarify your identity and values.
Heal where you're really feeling hurting, how to reclaim happiness, and then based on all of that, what is your action identity going to be? And that could change again and again, depending on the new technologies we have and what the circumstances are in your stages of life. yeah, it's a little bit of challenge to slow people down and say one step at a time, you can do this. This is a lifelong thing. We're not gonna solve these problems this week. Yeah, it's a lot. Does that make sense what I'm saying?
Pihkala: Yeah, yeah, it definitely does. This fact of humans being social creatures often shows in people's need for the other to agree with the approach they are taking on things. And of course, if a climate denier is not completely on that side, there's, you know, many people who have this dissonance and uncertainty in them. And while they are apparently just saying that they are certain that climate change is not a threat, are, many of them sort of asking for others to help them in denying climate matters. So it's sort of way of trying to get support for their take.
Doherty: It's interesting and what you're saying reminds me of, I think for some of our listeners where this becomes really difficult is in close families because we have multiple alliances and duties. Part of our alliance is to keep our family connected and to keep us together and it's very painful when families become split and schismed. And so it's really touchy. So the question is, what's more important, keeping the family together or telling the truth? You know, or keeping us healthy? And right now we've got messages here, particularly from the right in the US that's... It's all about, you know, you're with me or you're against me and you need to believe in a certain way and you can't say certain words. Otherwise, you're, you know, you're going to be ostracized. And so it's really dangerous. But I do think that one of the things that I think about also is not fighting people who don't believe. Not debating, but just listening. Like I say in my book, if I run against someone who really is strongly somehow denying...
I mean, there are stages of denial. Like, someone can deny the seriousness of climate change or not like certain policies, but that doesn't mean you're denying the very reality of the atmosphere and greenhouse gases. But you might also find people that really are truly uninformed or misinformed about the basic science of our planet. So what I tell myself is if they don't care about climate, these issues, then they must care about something else more. So what is it that they what is it that they care about more and I asked them and I talked about that. I don't have to agree with them, but it does change the conversation around and then we often can hear because they care about their family.
I'm a combination of a cynic and an optimist because I do feel like people do have a healthy core inside. Ultimately, they are mostly healthy, but they get twisted around. But just letting them say what they care about. Sometimes people have other political values that are being threatened. There is a reality testing, reality based thing that will happen. Like when I'm talking to someone, I this happen with a very old friend during the recent political election. We hadn't talked in some time and we were chatting and I realized that he really had a very different political belief than I do. And as we talked, I was hearing what I thought was conspiratorial thinking and I didn't think his position was truly based in what I understand to be objective reality about the world.
And when that's the case, you just have to be careful there because you're like talking to someone from another planet. sometimes you just have to stop and say, well, we're going to have to agree to disagree because this is my life and this is what I'm doing and what I think is important. So I'm going to pursue this. if I can't convince you, then I'm going to wish you peace and wish you well, but I'm gonna move forward. Because otherwise, it's not helpful if someone doesn't understand reality. If I told you, Panu, you don't understand reality, I know reality better than you, that's not gonna go over very well. You're not gonna like that. So there is a time of just saying, I'm not gonna fight this battle. And then I'm gonna move to my allies and with people that really are wanting to push forward. Does that make sense?
Pihkala: Yeah, it perfectly does and gives an occasion to say tribute to Robert J. Lifton who passed away some weeks ago and a collection of his writings or parts of it is called Losing Reality. So that's a very, I would say, unfortunately timely read for the time in which we are living. And you have a chapter about family in this part too. listeners, you will find more content about family dynamics from that chapter. And there's lots of prompts and exercises for people to think about their histories in relation to how they have been connected or not connected with the natural world. there's the eco timeline exercise that we have mentioned several times and which I think is highly useful. Telling your eco story and your eco family tree. I guess that could be linked with also telling them history of your social and political participation or non-participation. I guess that might be a strand in itself.
Doherty: Yeah, luckily a lot of people have positive mentors and connections in their family, people that they really admire. And so it's nice to really honor those positive elders that helped us, grandparents, parents, relatives, neighbors. And I do talk about the conflicts that I lean on, the work of William Doherty, the family therapist who does the Braver Angels, which are political partisan discussions, and the different roles that people take on in the family in these discussions. He has these great names. There's the sniper, which is the person in the family that makes outrageous statements and starts to cause conflicts. And then there's the gladiator, the person that wants to fight the battles and the bystanders and the peacekeepers. so a lot of the family therapy concepts are quite applicable in these climate debates and we can take on all these roles ourselves.
Pihkala: Yeah, yeah, and think easily recognizable by people who think of large family dinners, for example, whether that's over Christmas or Thanksgiving and those dynamics. So sometimes it's got to do with group dynamics and social dynamics more than environmental values. But that's something we have been discussing here also.
You have a chapter on meaning at this point of the book in my life experience that of course links strongly with the topic of spirituality which is only much further away in the book and I don't want to jump there but would you like to say something to the listeners about the meaning chapter and why did you decide to put it as number five?
Doherty: Yeah, you know again it was very strategic like the whole or I think originally that that chapter was called environmental Identity, but then since the whole section was called identity I tried to keep backing up and getting to what I thought were really like basic more timeless concepts because the book is not meant to be just for today. It's meant to be useful for many years. Maybe for your whole life really so I think meaning is a process that never stops. Also the way the book is set up. It's sort of like I introduce an idea in chapters early and characters and case studies and then we revisit at different levels. So there's a later chapter on healthy relationships in the thriving section, which revisits a lot of the family stuff, but on a positive sense. And then there's a chapter on caring for damaged nature in the healing section that builds on the basic nature chapter in part two.
So all of these thing build on themselves and you know ultimately the best way to frame environmental identity is how you make sense of the world—you're meaning, your story, what makes your life meaningful and significant and unique. what's wonderful about it is that you don’t have to be super outdoors adventurer, you don't have to know how to be a gardener or grow your own food. There's all different ways to be environmentally conscious. And then it prefigures later at the very end when I talk about action,
You know the action chapter again this talk it starts with duty So the first chapter and that is called so that you can see how them there's the meaning that begins section two And then duty begins the action. So it's like these are more timeless concepts. Like what is my duty? And it's hard to know what your duty is of unless you know what your meaning is, know what I mean? And so And then there's the our action identities, which I talk about it toward the end which you know, you could be a climate detective
I tried to offer some basic identities, not tied to specific behaviors because behaviors keep changing and technology is changing but I'd like to some basic, there's the detective role that we can play. Which is sort of like understanding climate change and studying it and also dealing with injustice and the criminal actions that are happening regarding stifling climate improvements around the world. there's that detective, which a lot of people are drawn into. Then there's the hero, climate hero, and that's the people that really have programs. And they say, this is how we solve it through technology and through the people who want to start nonprofits and be innovative. They're the heroes that we love. And then there's the climate survivor, which is just the person making do and surviving these disasters. So sometimes we're placed into the role of just being a survivor when we're dealing with stuff. So anyway, the book has these different levels. And right now, just this week with climate week, all of it was important to me when I was talking to educators, I was really like, you're missing this identity piece. The smart educators, I think, got it, but a lot of the educators were so focused on the information and giving all, especially young people, all this information that they didn't want really building their empowerment or identity. So I think that's important. And then because of the really gross climate propaganda, I think there's a strong pull to push back and to be that climate, climate detected to be that climate hero. So yeah, there's a lot going on. The book is like a Swiss watch that's got all these ideas crammed into it and then you can just keep expanding and playing with it in different ways.
Pihkala: Yeah, that's a nice structure, of spiral and coming back to different teams and building resonances and so appreciating that and the roles can be quite varied in character. Sometimes agents or partisans is what one needs perhaps to do if the general opinion is against you, but hopefully that may not be the case overly often. Purpose is one word that you mention in the meaning chapter and that's going to come up later also, closely connected possibly with duty and also with the idea of vocations or callings and you sort of hint at this by mentioning your experience in Joanna Macy's workshop. We actually discussed that at an earlier episode which was a tribute to Joanna Macy and the work that reconnects. So being a person who has much engaged with spirituality I was glad to this element of sort of deeper, higher self. Taking a look at one's life and wondering about vocations and callings and purpose.
Doherty: Yeah, I mean, the book was written in keeping people like you in mind, because I knew a lot of people who are quite advanced in these concepts would be reading and kind of hopefully seeing what I was trying to do is, as you say, trying to talk about some of these concepts in a way that was accessible to the general reader. But also never straying too far from what I understand is the science and the research and trying to keep it pretty close to what you would learn in a classroom if you were actually studying the basic principles. And you know that's part of my meaning myself and my strength is that I'm a psychologist and an educator and I'm not just and when I can stay with my strength about well this is what I know and this is what I think is helpful and you can decide what you think is helpful you know yourself is to the reader. I feel like I'm speaking the truth, you could say, at least the truth is, as it's generally understood and as I understand it now. So there's a lot of things I'm trying to like get in there, meaning pieces to get in there without sounding too grandiose or dry or intellectualized . We to be careful of all that stuff you know people start to like fall asleep like they're in a philosophy class or something so we want to sort of like keep it keep it real you know keep it keep it living keep it living so that was part of the goal and luckily I had some writing help to try to make sure that it was understood you know for people's not too academic.
Pihkala: That's a great mission and some really beautiful sentences like one at the end of the page where the whole part two is introduced. So which is that “where we love is where we find ourselves”. So that's beautifully said and I think a nice way to start ending our conversation on part two and climate week and times in which we are living.
I hope your travels from New York back towards Oregon go well. I'm going to see a friend in the darkening Helsinki evening.
Doherty: Yeah. Well, I've got one more day here in New York and then and then I'm flying back this evening and I have some trepidation about flights and government shutdowns and things so wish me well here. But yeah, as always Panu, it's really great to chat and you have a good evening and listeners, everyone keep the faith, think about your identity and values. No one can take those away from you. You have your right to think, to feel and to dream and that's the message for today. So everyone, Panu, take care, be well.
Pihkala: take care.
[music: “CC&H theme music”]
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